Other than the nineteenth-century angle, this doesn’t have much to do with American history, but look—I find something in the national news about a meteorite in my hometown, it’s going on the blog.

As long as we’re on the tangential subject of meteorites in my immediate vicinity, the town of Middlesboro, KY is actually inside a meteorite crater, and it’s about fifteen miles from Tazewell, just on the other side of Cumberland Gap. (Here’s an article from the Planetary Science Institute.) That’s two separate instances of big honking things hurtling down from space and smacking into the ground near where I’m sitting as I type this. Tomorrow I’m buying a hard hat.